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October 30, 2007

Francona: Greatest Post-season Manager?

It might be too early to annoit Terry Francona as the greatest post-season manager in baseball history -- although his tactical skills have been completely beyond reproach and have led me to rethink almost all of my previous complaints about him.

However, among managers who have managed at least 20 post-season games, he has the highest winning percentage:

Joe Torre's post-season record with the Yankees was 76-48 (.613). He was 4-14 (.222) in his last 18 post-season games with the Chokers. Which means that after Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS, Torre's record stood at an impressive 72-34 (.679) -- still not as good as Tito's mark, though Torre obviously managed many more games.

Francona is the 19th manager to win multiple championships and he is the first manager in history to win his first eight World Series games.

Ish - WEEI's interview with Schilling was very good. Not for sure if you saw his latest post at 38 pitches but he basically said good byes. He reiterated again that its 1 year at this years price, that is all he is asking for and if the Sox don't do it, then that is the way it goes.

I also got the feeling if the Sox do tell him no, he would just go somewhere else even if it was for less money. Will be interesting to see what happens.

I think that, given his large sample size, Torre can be given a break. Francona's got a ways to go before he can be considered a better post-season manager than Joe -- but I think he'll have the opportunity to do so over the next few years, glad to say.

I think Francona is one of the most underrated managers in sports. He's helped his team down 3-0 and 3-1 and go on to sweep the next series, which happened just happend to be a little thing they call The World Series. I'm glad the sox got him. If they would have lost I would have made a J.D Drew voodoo doll